NHAMAPADZA ATTACK

One person died on Wednesday and a second was injured in an attack by unidentified armed men against four vehicles on Mozambique’s main north-south highway in the Nhamapadza area, in Maringue district, in the central province of Sofala.According to Friday’s issue of the Beira daily paper “Diario de Mocambique”, a truck driver was injured, and the driver’s assistant killed in the ambush. Eye-witnesses said the attack took place just a few metres from a military position, which members of the Mozambican defence and security forces had abandoned on Tuesday.

A bus from the company “Nagi Investments” also fell into the ambush. It was carrying 53 passengers from Nampula to Beira. The bus was struck by bullets, but none of the passengers or crew was hit.A man named Valdemiro Bambo told the paper “there was a group of four vehicles, with a Toyota Runex in the front. When we were eight kilometres from Gorongosa district, the shots began. In the truck the assistant was killed and the driver wounded. The truck was hit by more than ten bullets”.He added that the victims were assisted by an ambulance escorted by members of the defence and security forces.

Bambo assumed the attackers must be from the self-styled “Renamo Military Junta” – dissidents from the former rebel movement Renamo, who have threatened to overthrow Renamo leader Ossufo Momade and warned the government not to continue negotiating with Momade.The attack took place at about 18.00, less than 24 hours before President Filipe Nyusi and Ossufo Momade signed an agreement on the definitive cessation of military hostilities at Chitengo in Gorongosa National Park.Nyusi referred to the attack at a rally in Beira on Thursday afternoon, where he said he had learnt that “a group of enemies of peace ambushed vehicles and killed and injured people in Nhamapadza”.He had spoken about the ambush with Momade, who had assured him that Renamo guerrillas were not responsible. “Since they are enemies of peace, the government and Renamo will pursue this group until they are neutralised”, declared Nyusi.